For all you naysayers beware the blacklegged tick has arrived

Changing climate brings ticks, Lyme disease into Canada

The blacklegged tick population is creeping northward into Canada, and with it climbs the risk of contracting Lyme disease.

York University researchers are warning that climate change is causing the country to become increasingly habitable to the blood-sucking bugs, which migrate by clinging to travelling birds and deer.

Jianhong Wu, the director of the York Institute for Health Research, says the tick population will grow exponentially in the coming years in many parts of Ontario.

Over the next 60 years, his team forecasts a huge growth in tick populations in the United States. The range of habitat will also expand substantially in Western Canada and grow further north in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, Wu says.

His team created a series of heat maps depicting the current and predicted rate of population increase.

READ MORE: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/changing-climate-brings-ticks-lyme-disease-into-canada-1.2387044